The Salon Meritage shootings forced the senior pastor of Seal Beach’s Grace Community Church to change the scheduled subject of the morning service. Rev. Don Shoemaker, who performs the 8 and 9:30 a.m. services at Grace Community, had planned to address the question “should you call the preacher ‘reverend?'”
Of course the Wednesday murders changed Shoemaker’s plans. That would have been true for any minister in Seal Beach—but especially Shoemaker, who is also the Seal Beach Police Department chaplain. He has been ministering to the families and friends of the victims since Wednesday afternoon.
Shoemaker said everyone was familiar with the expression, “wrong place at the wrong time.”
“But what if you are were where you’re suppsed to be, where you have a right to be and have a right to be in safety?”
As he spoke, a screen behind Shoemaker displayed pictures of the victims, the growing memorial outside Salon Meritage and the Thursday, Oct. 13 candlelight vigil for the victims.
Shoemaker said he had no answer to the question why this had to happen.
Shoemaker did not identify the murderer by name, but referred to him as a man who did not love his neighbor as he loved himself; a man who did not obey Thou Shalt Not Kill.
Shoemaker called for a prayer of grattitude that there was not another shootout on Wednesday, Oct. 12, when police arrested the gunman without incident. The suspect, now identified as Scott Evan Dekraai, was armed with three guns and was wearing soft body armor (commonly known as a bullet proof vest) when he surrendered to the Seal Beach Police Department and other law enforcement agencies.
During the service, individual members of the congretation offered brief prayers or read Bible verses.
Sometime after performing the second of two morning services, Shoemaker went to visit the memorial outside Salon Meritage.
Many people were present. No one spoke. The flowers, the cards, the candles and the black balloons gave mute testimony to a community’s grief.
